Another game I really enjoy is Euphoria (creating a better dystopia). The game is a hoot, and is a lot of fun with 5 players (as alliances can be made like two people digging a tunnel to steal resources from another factions store house - each player bumps the other guy's die back to him so they can dig the entire tunnel without having to call their dice home). The happier your workers are, the more cards you can hold in your hand; but it costs less to send them home without dinner. The smarter your people become, the more likely they are going to realize "this sucks!" and run away. So the "moral of the story" is to keep your work force dumb and happy (drugged or full of food).

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Another game I really enjoy is Euphoria (creating a better dystopia). The game is a hoot, and is a lot of fun with 5 players (as alliances can be made like two people digging a tunnel to steal resources from another factions store house - each player bumps the other guy's die back to him so they can dig the entire tunnel without having to call their dice home). The happier your workers are, the more cards you can hold in your hand; but it costs less to send them home without dinner. The smarter your people become, the more likely they are going to realize "this sucks!" and run away. So the "moral of the story" is to keep your work force dumb and happy (drugged or full of food).

I think we have this one in the office...sounds like we should unwrap it and try it

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I think we have this one in the office...sounds like we should unwrap it and try it

It a favorite of my group. Note: Jamie Stegmaier (spelling? of stonemaier games) has a treasure chest (old KS project) for the gold, brick, stone, etc. If you look in my profile, it may be my first KS project I backed.

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Co-op games are a big hit with my group of friends and family that I play games with, so that's where my purchases tend to wind up. I also really enjoy Fortune and Glory and Betrayal at House on the Hill for more competitive titles that start out as co-op.

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I've played Betrayal at House on the Hill. It broke badly, which I have heard can happen. I also have heard that it can be amazing if it doesn't break. Will look into Fortune and Glory. If you like Co-op, check out Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. A completely different board game experience that is well crafted and loads of fun to play. Especially with a glass of fine spirits in your hand.

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I've played Betrayal at House on the Hill. It broke badly, which I have heard can happen. I also have heard that it can be amazing if it doesn't break. Will look into Fortune and Glory. If you like Co-op, check out Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. A completely different board game experience that is well crafted and loads of fun to play. Especially with a glass of fine spirits in your hand.

The only complaint we've had with Fortune and Glory is that it can be a long game and if you play with more than 5 or 6 people, players have the potential to get disinterested as turns can be long if you have slowpokes. There are also a ton of rules, so the first couple of plays can drag from looking up rules for situations. After a few plays though, it opens up and is quite fun, who doesn't want to play Indiana Jones: the board game??

I haven't had Betrayal break on my play group really. It can really depend on when the haunt happens and who gets selected. We had one recently where 3 of the 4 players had taken some ability hits from poor rolls on events and the 4th player happened to pick up most of the good items. Of course that same person ended up being the betrayer when the haunt happened and quickly killed us all. We still had fun which is always the goal. At the same time, I played once with a group where we had a hidden betrayer (each player got two tokens, all but one player got two matching tokens, the betrayer had mismatched tokens). The person who ended up being the betrayer didn't bother to look at both of his tokens and happily helped the survivors complete their objective. We were all confused until we had everyone flip over their tokens and he discovered his error. He has not lived it down to this day.

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If you're a Co-op fan and like deck builders, I highly suggest Big Book of Madness. Its very hard (my win rate is abysmal) but it has been a big hit with my play group.

We have been playing Sentinals a bit in our gaming group, which is a comic book themed co-op card game where each player plays a different hero with their own themed deck and the group tries to defeat a common enemy. We enjoy that. I've thought about going for Legendary which has a similar theme but is more of a deck building co-op game in the comic book universe, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Might look into Big Book of Madness though too, we like challenging.

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We have been playing Sentinals a bit in our gaming group, which is a comic book themed co-op card game where each player plays a different hero with their own themed deck and the group tries to defeat a common enemy. We enjoy that. I've thought about going for Legendary which has a similar theme but is more of a deck building co-op game in the comic book universe, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Might look into Big Book of Madness though too, we like challenging.

I am a huge Sentinels fan, though my sagging shelf would probably say a bit too much so. Sadly it doesn't get to the table all that often. Big Book is similar as it requires a lot of table discussion which is why I like it so much. I highly suggest finding an opportunity to try it out, unless you don't mind picking up a game unplayed even with my stamp of approval.

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The only gripe I would have with Sentinels is more a personal thing. Some of my friends picked up the game and they play it very frequently before introducing my wife and I to the game. Since they are so familiar with the game, they move very quickly through both their turns and the villain phase. I picked it up pretty quickly, but my poor wife was left not really understanding what she was doing or how her actions contributed to the group effort. It's not really a problem with the game, just something that can happen when you're super familiar with a game and don't think about the newbie coming in to play their first couple of games.

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Alpha Gamer issue? If I'm inferring the correct meaning there, you're asking how it handles a player that wants to min-max everything? Really for the players in my group it means that the three or four of them that play all the time play the exact same 4 heroes every game and they have found what they consider to be the perfect mix of archetypes to maximize their chances to win any given encounter. Also since they play the game frequently, they tend to almost speed read through the environment and villain cards as they come up and summarize the effects using unfamiliar language to a new player. For new players joining this type of player group, it can be quite confusing because you almost don't get to experience the sense of danger or even understanding what is going on. Also it can accentuate the feeling that you have no idea what you're doing or how you're contributing to the group effort.

Again, while I'm sure others experience a similar thing when playing with this type of gamer, much is likely a function of the players that I sometimes play with and not necessarily a widespread issue. I think that it can often be a challenge introducing a new player to a well loved and heavily played game. It can be easy to skim over nuances that a seasoned player understands as second nature but may be extremely confusing to a new player. The same can be true for unspoken rules/agreements within play groups. For instance, my family loves playing Settlers of Catan. An un-spoken agreement in that play group is "don't be a jerk" by placing the robber on a 6 or 8 tile. A new player coming into that group would not hear that "rule" verbalized and, as it is a competitive game, naturally select a strategic location to limited resource production for his opponents causing the other players to react negatively to this new player.